Since year 12, I have developed a lot on my knowledge and experience in Photography. I understand more about the techniques, history, and meanings etc behind Photography and I feel very comfortable in this current stage of my education. I have made quite an effort to get where I am at currently, with all of my essays, research, and most of all my photographs.

Anthropocene:

I think, out of all of my topics/projects, the one that I was the most successful in was the Anthropocene project. I believe I utilised various techniques very effectively, things like deadpan and rule of thirds were some of many. Also in general the things I took pictures of were very appropriate for the theme of Anthropocene, the estate/urban photos in particular worked very well in terms of the themes and quality.

Some photos worth mentioning are:

I also believe that through Anthropocene in particular, I have learned many different editing techniques made through photoshop, such as levelling, cropping, cutting and pasting, colour balancing etc.. The list goes on and on.

Landscape:

During my landscape photoshoot, I believe I took some really good quality photos that contained a lot of detail. I took advantage of the composition and level editing the most and I think the majority of these turned out just the way I wanted them to.

Some highlights under Landscape:

Very happy with these, I like the textures in the grass, concrete and clouds a lot and they make the photos so much better. The sky having many different assortments of shapes and colours adds a lot too, makes the photos feel different from one another.

Urban:

Huge fan of this one too, this is when I went to Harve Des Pas and took photos of the buildings all around. Some of these really hit the spot, in terms of quality and rule of thirds I think these are one of the strongest.

Best photos under Urban:

Love the composition, framing and depth in these images, the are all clear quality and have their main subjects clearly in view. The colours, while mostly absent, are yet present in just enough amounts of quantities. Really happy and proud of this chapter.

Headshots:

This one is probably the best photoshoot of mine taken in the studio, I love the colours used and the contrast, along with the sharpness as a whole. The lights being shone in the background makes the subject, who is a different colour, stand out and make their facial expressions more visible. This also appears to be the first photoshoot where I experimented with the shutter speeds.

Best photos under Headshots:

The process of my page spreads and the development:

To give an old look to the article, I made sure the paper background had a little yellowing by making the color a more cream, off-white instead of a plain white. I feel it makes it look more interesting as it looks like it was made a while ago rather than it looking like it came out today. On the first page I added many photos and added a red border around a handful, this was mostly for decoration as without it the page looked a bit bland. I made the red borders by simply adding text boxes around them, changing the colour and thickness and having no text inside. For the headline, “ST MALO”, I obviously had to make it bigger as that is what the article is mainly about, the red line under the ‘MALO’ isn’t actually a red line, it is actually an L that has been put on it’s side and dyed red, I did this because I liked the swish it had and it made it look more interesting than a simple red line.

For this page I decided to change things up by using a black background for half of it, this helps highlight the text and the photo underneath and gives a more old time look. I made this by making another text box, setting it behind the photo and text and dying the body black. On the other half, I had the idea to surround a body of text with photos to make it look neat and tidy.

On the final page, I wanted a similar style the first one had. I wanted a black border encasing the headline and main body of text in the upper center, done using the same method, which I think makes the final page look more focused on what could be perhaps wrapping things up for the article. Underneath there is a photo which is proportional for the body of text and on the sides of the page show different photos in slightly different layouts just to make the patterns more interesting that having the same ones.

How are Archives a repository of knowledge?

What are Archives:

“Archives” is traditionally a name for a room that stores and documents information about something or several things. This can be for history or general information etc.. Archives have been used throughout human history and they have been very helpful among historians who are studying a specific era in human history. These days, while archives still remain in use, digital archives are now very well used and are much easier and quicker to access, digital ones contain images, documents and many more things that you wouldn’t be allowed to even touch in a physical archive. Despite the rise in technology and the internet, physical archives have seemed to push through as it has done so for many centuries as one of Man’s most reliable resources for information.

Archives in Jersey:

There are a few Archives here in jersey too. Such as The Société Jersiaise and the Jersey Archive. In The Société Jersiaise, you will find a lot of work from the well known photographer, Henry Mullins. His work consisted of many portraits of Jersey during the 1800s. His work helped him be recognised as the person who played an important role in the early development in Jersey’s photography. In the Jersey Archive, it stores information on Claude Cahun, another well known photographer that is linked to jersey. In the Jersey Archive you can find her work, or what is left of it after the Germans destroyed most of it during WW2. Her work covers alot on sexuality and gender identity, quite interesting especially since it’s from the 30s to 40s. Appealing to anyone who wants to study the history of gender identity and sexuality.

Conclusion:

To conclude, archives are a great way to tap into the history of a certain event or era. It is a very reliable source as it will tell you the truth on something and nothing but the truth, it wont be altered by other people’s stories that you would hear online. Using an archive to gather information is a more authentic way of learning from the past as you will likely be in a different atmosphere and have different surroundings from that era, like in The Societe Jersaise where you are inside a real building that was built from that time.

Here is a link to our final film: Elizabeth Castle

Research:

Elizabeth Castle:

Elizabeth Castle is a castle that was built in Jersey, CI in 1601. It was named after Queen Elizabeth the 1st who was on the throne during that time and it was built for defence for the Port of St. Helier. Since then it has become a tourist attraction and museum for tourists and historians. The castle still holds many artefacts and reminiscence from several events and wars throughout history.

Nazi Occupation:

During most of the Second World War, Jersey was held under occupation by the Germans from 30 June 1940 until liberation day on 9 May 1945. The Nazis during the occupation also made changes to the castle. They made it into a camp by adding bunkers and turrets around the castle.

War Tunnels:

The Nazis during their occupation had their POW’s dig out a large area in a cliff in St. Lawrence. This became the War Tunnels and was made to be a hospital. The hospital was called Hohlgangsanlage 8. It was never completed and after the second world war it was made into a museum.

Plan:

My group; Me, Charlie and George, will be going to Elizabeth Castle and the war tunnels to shoot a film. Our ideas for the film consist of:

• Hyperlapse of a walk through the castle. A series of photos taken at each stop during a walk through the castle.
• Drone shot, if we can get a drone. Which will help with making the film more professional and interesting.
• Shots of the Militia.
• Shots of cannons being fired. (Could be in slow motion).
• Shots of flags in the wind.
• Shots of statues.
• Shots of tanks and other vehicles.
• Shots of uniforms.
• Shots of weapons and tools.

Chris Marker:

Chris Marker, born 1921, was a French photographer, writer and documentary film director. Best known for his film, “La Jetee” which he published in 1962. He is also known for his participation in the Left Bank subset of the French New Wave that occurred in the 1950’s.

Le Jetee:

Le Jetee was a film that Chris Marker made in 1962. The nearly 30 minute film featured a series of black and white photographs with a narrator speaking over them. It is a story of a post-nuclear war and time travel, some of which was used for inspiration for a movie called 12 monkeys, released in 1955.

On the same day that we visited the La Société Jersiaise archive, we also visited an art expo that was currently being held. It was called “No Place like Home” and was being held in town in the Art House, the same place that “Playtime” by Will Lakeman was being held also.

The expo featured a household environment filled with many objects that you would see in a household. Some items there worth mentioning were an old tv that was playing a video of someone showcasing more household items, a record player along with multiple vinyls, a russian shuttle crashed outside, a big sewed portrait of a cavern and a group of shelves hanging from the ceiling containing bathroom items.

Société Jersiaise is an archive of photos that contains the History, culture, environment and language of Jersey. There is about 35,000 historical images archived here, some of their photos and information goes back further than 1873, which was the year it was founded. There is an extensive library there where the archive publishes books about the photos for people to get, handy for any historians on the island who want to learn more about the history of Jersey. They are currently celebrating their 150 year anniversary too. Their website and info about them and where they can be found, can be found here.

Photos of our visit to Société Jersiaise:

I made sure to use different colours, backgrounds, shapes, sizes, texts, fonts etc to make it look like an old newspaper of st malo. The titles of each page match the photos in the page. Very happy with these outcomes, very nice to look at.

My film uses many jumpcuts and fast edits. The cuts go along with the beat of the song in the background. I think I did a good job with this overall.